Get your skateboard off the sidewalk, 33 years ago

In October of 1987, the La Crosse city council passed an ordinance to ban skates and skateboards from city streets, parking ramps, and sidewalks in business districts.  Skating would be allowed in residential parts of the city.  The manager of the Village Shopping Center said the rule would help prevent skateboard users from crashing through plate glass doors.   

A Supreme Court nominee was having a rough time at his confirmation hearings.  One newspaper headline described him as ‘Doomed Bork.’  Robert Bork was under fire for conservative views, and there was pressure on him to either withdraw his name, or for President Reagan to choose a different candidate.  More than half of the Senate was opposed to Bork, partly because he was called upon by Richard Nixon to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973.  Bork’s nomination was put to a Senate vote.  The total was 58 votes against him, and 42 in favor.   

Senator Joe Biden was running for president for the first time, but he dropped out of the 1988 campaign early, after being accused of plagiarizing a speech by a British politician.   

The La Crosse Community Theatre opened its new season with ‘The King and I,’ followed by ‘Deathtrap’ and ‘Talley’s Folly.’  Morrie Enders was the new director at LCT that fall, and he’d head the theatre for the next 18 years.  Morrie arrived in 1987, yesterday in La Crosse.